[note: The following is a revised and expanded
version of a talk I delivered on August 6th, 2003 at the first annual Hiroshima
Day of Remembrance and Peace Lantern Ceremony sponsored by the Winnebago County
Peace and Justice Center.--Tony Palmeri].

We are not here tonight to debate the morality of the bombing of Hiroshima.
At the same time, we cannot be intimidated by those seeking to bully or smear
as historical "revisionists"
those of us who dare to question the morality of the bombing. The use of the
term revisionist to describe critics of the bombing is particularly appalling;
as noted by media critic Hugh
Sansom, "It's a term now widely and vaguely used to condemn through
guilt by association with actual revisionists about the Holocaust."

The dropping of the atomic bomb was opposed by General Eisenhower, General
MacArthur, and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy. Admiral
Leahy, Chief of Staff to both Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, said of the
atomic bomb that, "in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical
standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."

Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Leahy were not revisionists. Rather, they were great
patriots exercising their right and responsibility to dissent against policies
they saw as immoral or unnecessary.

Today, we are spending one billion dollars per week and losing one soldier
per day in Iraq, supposedly to provide the Iraqis with the freedom to question
the wisdom and morality of their leaders. Why can't those who want to prevent
or discourage us from asking questions about Hiroshima see the irony of treating
the democratic value of dissent with intolerance at the same time we say we
are trying to promote democratic values in faraway lands?

But again, we are not here to debate. We are here to remember, to celebrate,
and to learn. I hope my remarks tonight contribute to a little of each.

Trillions upon trillions of words have been written about Hiroshima in the
last 58 years. But for me the only "must" reading on the list is one
of the earliest works, John Hersey's
1946 "Hiroshima." Hersey traveled to Japan to interview survivors
of the blast. He learned that the Japanese use the term Hibakusha to describe
these people. In English, the most accurate translation for Hibakusha is "explosion
affected person/s."

Hersey traveled back to Japan 40 years later, finding that the Hibakusha had
been subject to terrible discrimination to go along with their physical and
psychological scars.

One of the prominent Hibakusha in Hersey's essay, Miss
Toshiko Sasaki, gave a speech at a banquet celebrating her 25th anniversary
of becoming a nun. She said, " . . . it is as if I had been given a spare
life when I survived the A-bomb. But I prefer not to look back. I shall keep
moving forward."

Sister Toshiko's courage and dignity in the face of great adversity is something
for us to celebrate and learn from. Her story forces us to think of the ways
in which, as many speakers on the topic of Hiroshima have suggested, we are
all Hibakusha. That is, we are all explosion affected persons.

The explosion affects us all differently. When made aware of it, some try to
understand Hiroshima. Others try to prevent any understanding
of Hiroshima.

Reverend Bill Sinkford,
President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, presents us with a role
model of trying to come to terms with Hiroshima. Listen to what he told the
Association's general assembly in June:

Yes, its been a tough year. As I have traveled it has often felt
that I have been on a search for hope. Perhaps some of you have been on the
same search.

While I was in Japan, I took a day to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park,
the memorial to the 250,000 Japanese who were killed when we dropped a weapon
of mass destruction on that city.

And at a wonderful dinner at the Tsubaki Grand Shrine after our ritual
Misogi cleansing, I finally found the question I needed to ask our Japanese
hosts.

How could you possibly have forgiven us for our use of the atomic
bomb?

A member of the Grand Shrine Board, a retired nuclear physicist named
Mr. Feruda, responded.

First, thank you for asking the question. No one has ever asked
us that before.

After thinking for a moment, he said: Despite the horrific death
toll and the devastation, we actually have come to see our loss as a blessing.

You see, if we had not lost that war, the military government would
probably still be in power and we would still be out colonizing and appropriating
resources to fuel our industrial machine.

If we had not lost, the attitude of arrogance that was a part of
Japanese life during those times would still be with us, the belief that because
we had the might, we had the right to do as we willed.

You see, if we had not lost we would have become you. We
would have become you and it would have crippled the soul of our nation.

Reverend Sinkford's recounting of Mr. Feruda's remarks got me to thinking about
the way the majority of our politicians, pundits, and even preachers discuss
the issue of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Have you noticed
that in all of the weapons of mass destruction moralizing and fear mongering,
our leaders always fail to mention that the United States has over 6,000 nuclear
weapons deployed? Or that we refuse to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?

Today in Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba spoke to 40,000 people. He said that,
"The Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, the central international agreement guiding the
elimination of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of collapse."

Why is the treaty on the verge of collapse? According to Akiba, "The chief
cause is US nuclear policy that, by openly declaring the possibility of a preemptive
nuclear first strike and calling for resumed
research into mini-nukes and other so-called 'useable nuclear weapons,'
appears to worship nuclear weapons as God."

The preemptive nuclear first strike posture mentioned by the Mayor appears
in the December of 2002 "National
Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction." That document says
in part, "US military forces and appropriate civilian agencies must have
the capability to defend against WMD armed adversaries, including in appropriate
cases through preemptive measures. This requires capabilities to detect and
destroy and adversaries WMD assets before these weapons are used."

Tomorrow, at a meeting
to be held at Offut Air Force base in Nebraska, Pentagon officials and nuclear
scientists will discuss America's nuclear future, including the possibility
of creating so-called bunker-busting "mini-nukes" mentioned by Mayor
Akiba.

Note how the use of the term "mini-nuke" makes it sound as if the
bomb is less than lethal. This is another Orwellian trick, another attempt to
persuade the masses that a "smart" bomb is somehow civilized and humane.

I'd like to close by warning us all to be aware of appeals to support violence
based on righting the wrong of September 11. In 1945 many Americans could rationalize
the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the Japanese receiving
just deserts for Pearl Harbor and other atrocities. The bomb became a way to
attain justice for our war dead.

Today, many attempt to use the tragedy of September 11 as a justification for
retaliatory violence, often invoking the theme of justice for the victims' families
as a rationale.

But a number of September 11 victims' families have chosen to dedicate their
lives to nonviolence. On Friday, a group of September 11 families will
meet at Ground Zero with a delegation of Japanese Hibakusha.